Mormon Transhumanism

[pellegrino]

You know, there might be something to this.

Look at Fabrice Muamba: dead for 80 minutes and he will survive and probably have a normal life. Stuff like that happens every day: people literally brought back from the dead by medical technology.

If that's the type of thing the transhumanists are talking about then I'm on board. I've been accused of thinking I'm God anyway (by my wife and others) so I might as well embrace it.

I don't know if this is how transhumanists feel about it, rather i was positing this as a common approach to modern "miracles" that many believers have.

[cayblood]

Terraforming. Hilarious. You folks have been watching too many Firefly re-runs.

Rubert Zubrin is a nut. But he is a highly entertaining nut, I will grant you that. He has made a career working for aerospace companies coming up with outlandish ideas like that to keep the grants and contracts flowing. He is anything but unbiased.

Never claimed Zubrin was unbiased. Most people who really get things done never are. On the other hand, I agree that it is important to try to be aware of one's biases when pursuing one's goals. And I don't mean to say that Zubrin is someone who really gets things done. Don't know much about him other than having read his book.

My main point is that there are really determined people out there who want to do things like this, and it seems to me that human will is one of the most influential forces in the course of history. It matters less how presently feasible these things seem to be than it does how determined people are to do them.

I personally think that space habitats will be around before we terraform Mars. There is so much abundance in the asteroid belt that once we are in a position to harvest materials there, the scarcity of most presently-precious materials will cease. And I think space exploration is a natural thing to do when you've conquered death, which I expect to happen in the next few decades.

I know this stuff sounds crazy but exponential growth is seriously unintuitive to humans, and we are at the cusp of a serious growth curve. In about a decade common PCs (or their equivalent) will have roughly the same MIPs as a human brain. In thirty years a common PC will have a MIPs equivalent of roughly all the human brains in the world combined. Current protein folding and other tough problems that require huge clusters of computers and many days to solve will take only seconds on such PCs. Many more revolutions in nanotech and robotics will be happening at the same time.

[SCcoug]

Planetary Resources has announced they plan to mine asteroids. They are backed by several big names including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, film maker James Cameron and Ross Perot, Jr. among others.

The company’s plans are slow and deliberate in their approach. They anticipate that they’ll launch their first spacecraft in their Arkyd 100 series in about 24 months. This series of craft will be space telescopes with the intent of identifying possible targets for space exploration. This will be followed up by the 200 series, which will have propulsion so that the craft can move to better observe asteroids, and finally the 300 series, which will consist of a swarm of robotic spacecraft to complete prospecting and begin the extraction process. The company has no intention of building a launch system – instead, they plan on “hitching rides” with other payloads being launched by NASA or commercial launches.

...The company did not provide a timeline for the start of actual mining, either, though Peter Diamandis noted that it will take about a decade just to prospect and identify priority mining targets.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknap...s-gone-before/

[cayblood]

Planetary Resources has announced they plan to mine asteroids. They are backed by several big names including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, film maker James Cameron and Ross Perot, Jr. among others.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknap...s-gone-before/

Yeah, saw that SCcoug. Thanks for bringing it back to the discussion. Lots of things sound crazy until they happen, eh? I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this type of stuff in the next few years. SpaceX's launch on the 30th represents a big milestone in commercial space exploration, and lots of other investors are starting to see the potential in it.

[cayblood]

Oops, looks like the SpaceX launch has been rescheduled for May 7th.

[UtahDan]

Really interesting podcast I listened to a couple of days ago made me think of this thread:

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/neil_degrasse_tyson_space_chronicles/

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Space Chronicles


April 2, 2012

Host: Chris Mooney


This week, Point of Inquiry is thrilled to welcome back one of our most popular guests: Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

Last time we had him on, Dr. Tyson engaged in a wide ranging discussion about science communication and the place of science in America.

This time, we focus in on his new book—Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier—and his call for revitalizing NASA and letting it play a central role in reconnecting America and science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is America's most pre-eminent science communicator. In addition to his work at the Hayden Planetarium and his books and television appearances, he is also the host of Star Talk Radio.

[UtahDan]

"Clay interviews Lincoln Cannon and James Carroll about Mormon Transhumanism. Fellow Expositor panelist, Heather, joins the conversation."

http://mormonexpositor.com/29-mormon-tran shumanism/

Yet another take on this topic, this time by my gang.....

[myboynoah]

The Immortality Upgrade